SS ''El Estero'' was a ship filled with ammunition that caught fire at dockside in

New York Harbor New York Harbor is a bay that covers all of the Upper Bay. It is at the mouth of the Hudson River near the East River tidal estuary on the East Coast of the United States. New York Harbor is generally synonymous with Upper New York Bay, ...

in 1943, but was successfully moved away and sunk by the heroic efforts of tugboat and fireboat crews, averting a major disaster.

The ship

The ''El Estero'' was built as a general cargo steamship for the

Southern Pacific Steamship Lines The Southern Pacific (or Espee from the railroad initials) was an American Class I railroad network that existed from 1865 to 1996 and operated largely in the Western United States. The system was operated by various companies under the names ...

at the Downey Shipbuilding Yard in

Staten Island, New York Staten Island ( ) is the southernmost of the boroughs of New York City, five boroughs of New York City, coextensive with Richmond County and situated at the southernmost point of New York (state), New York. The borough is separated from the ad ...

and delivered for service in September 1920. The first of three sister ships built for the line, ''El Estero'' was operated by the Morgan Line in the

short-sea shipping The modern terms short-sea shipping (sometimes unhyphenated), marine highway and motorways of the sea, as well as the more historical terms coastal trade, coastal shipping, coasting trade and coastwise trade, all encompass the movement of cargo and ...

trade primarily between the ports of

New York City New York, often called New York City (NYC), is the most populous city in the United States, located at the southern tip of New York State on one of the world's largest natural harbors. The city comprises five boroughs, each coextensive w ...

Baltimore Baltimore is the most populous city in the U.S. state of Maryland. With a population of 585,708 at the 2020 census and estimated at 568,271 in 2024, it is the 30th-most populous U.S. city. The Baltimore metropolitan area is the 20th-large ...

and

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for much of her commercial service life. Acquired by the US Maritime Commission on June 10, 1941, as part of an effort to increase US-Flag merchant marine shipping capacity, ''El Estero'' was purchased from Southern Pacific and placed operation with

United States Lines United States Lines was an organization of the United States Shipping Board's (USSB) Emergency Fleet Corporation (EFC), created to operate German liners seized by the United States in 1917. The ships were owned by the USSB and all finances of t ...

under a Panamanian registry. Pressed into service carrying war supplies from the United States to Europe during

World War II World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...

, the ship made several

Atlantic The Atlantic Ocean is the second largest of the world's five oceanic divisions, with an area of about . It covers approximately 17% of Earth's surface and about 24% of its water surface area. During the Age of Discovery, it was known for se ...

crossings in convoys which frequently came under

U-boat U-boats are Submarine#Military, naval submarines operated by Germany, including during the World War I, First and Second World Wars. The term is an Anglicization#Loanwords, anglicized form of the German word , a shortening of (), though the G ...

attack, including

Convoy PQ 13 PQ 13 was a British Arctic convoy that delivered war supplies from the Western Allies to the USSR during World War II. The convoy was subject to attack by German air, U-boat and surface forces and suffered the loss of five ships, plus one escor ...

in March 1942. Continued this duty until Jan. 4, 1943. On Jan. 4, 1943 operation of the ship was turned over to William J. Rountree Company.''El Estero'' put into

in early April 1943 where she waited her turn to load munitions at the long finger pier of the New York Port of Embarkation's Caven Point Terminal off

Jersey City, New Jersey Jersey City is the List of municipalities in New Jersey, second-most populous

The fire

''El Estero'' had taken on 1,365 tons of mixed munitions on April 24, 1943 and was preparing to depart at approximately 5:30PM when a boiler flashback started a fire on oily water in her bilges which quickly grew out of control."The El Estero Fire and How the US Coast Guard Helped Save New York Harbor"
by William H. Thiesen, ''Sea History'' 126, Spring 2009 The fire brought an immediate response of five fire trucks from the Jersey City Fire Department, two 30-foot fireboats, and roughly 60 volunteers from the U.S. Coast Guard to battle and contain the flames aboard the ship, which was moored directly opposite two other fully loaded ammunition ships and two ammunition-laden railroad boxcars. More than 5,000 tons of ammunition was in immediate danger of being set off by the fire on ''El Estero'' (comparable to a

tactical nuclear weapon A tactical nuclear weapon (TNW) or non-strategic nuclear weapon (NSNW) is a nuclear weapon that is designed to be used on a battlefield in military situations, mostly with friendly forces in proximity and perhaps even on contested friendly territ ...

), and fire fighting efforts began in earnest. It was quickly discovered that the location and intensity of the fire prevented access to the ships'

seacock A seacock is a valve on the hull of a boat or a ship, permitting water to flow into the vessel, such as for cooling an engine or for a salt water faucet; or out of the boat, such as for a sink drain or a toilet. Seacocks are often a Kingston val ...

s, making it impossible to scuttle the ship, so the

New York City Fire Department The New York City Fire Department, officially the Fire Department of the City of New York (FDNY) is the full-service fire department of New York City, serving all Boroughs of New York City, five boroughs. The FDNY is responsible for providing Fi ...

dispatched its two most powerful fireboats: '' Fire Fighter'' and '' John J. Harvey''. The fireboats arrived at 6:30 p.m. and immediately ran hoses up to Coast Guardsmen on the burning ship, then took positions directly alongside ''El Estero'', as a trio of commercial tugboats made up a towline to her bow and began pulling her off the Caven Point Pier towards open waters on through

The Narrows The Narrows is the tidal strait separating the boroughs of Staten Island and Brooklyn in New York City. It connects the Upper New York Bay and Lower New York Bay (of larger New York Bay) and forms the principal channel by which the Hudson Ri ...

. There was a high probability that the ship's volatile cargo could explode at any moment, but the Coast Guardsmen, fire fighters, and tug crews continued their efforts to contain the fire and to save as much of the ship and cargo as possible. However, the

Port Admiral Port admiral is an honorary rank in the United States Navy, and a former appointment in the British Royal Navy. Royal Navy In British naval usage, the term 'port admiral' had two distinct (and somewhat contradictory) meanings, one generic, one sp ...

soon ordered the ship to be sunk. The fireboats then moved to a shallow area of water off of Constable Hook in

Bayonne, New Jersey Bayonne ( ) is a City (New Jersey), city in Hudson County, New Jersey, Hudson County in the U.S. state of New Jersey, in the Gateway Region on Bergen Neck, a peninsula between Newark Bay to the west, the Kill Van Kull to the south, and New York ...

near

Robbins Reef Light The Robbins Reef Light Station is a sparkplug lighthouse located off Constable Hook in Bayonne, Hudson County, New Jersey, United States, along the west side of Main Channel, Upper New York Bay. Note that although the light is clearly shown o ...

Upper New York Bay New York Harbor is a bay that covers all of the Upper Bay. It is at the mouth of the Hudson River near the East River tidal estuary on the East Coast of the United States. New York Harbor is generally synonymous with Upper New York Bay ...

and began pumping 38,000 gallons of water per minute into ''El Esteros cargo holds, which succeeded in swamping the ship and sending her to the bottom shortly after 9 p.m. with much of her superstructure still above the surface. All hot spots were declared extinguished by 11:30 p.m. on the 24th, and what is considered to have been the single greatest threat to

during

passed without major incident or loss of life.Time Ebbs for the Heroes Who Saved the Harbor
Clyde Haberman, ''

The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''NYT'') is an American daily newspaper based in New York City. ''The New York Times'' covers domestic, national, and international news, and publishes opinion pieces, investigative reports, and reviews. As one of ...

'', May 27, 2008

Aftermath

With a shroud of secrecy soon in place over the events surrounding the sinking of ''El Estero'' due in large part to the then-classified mission of the Caven Point Army Depot, public knowledge of the near disaster remained low until 1944 when the first of several awards for heroism were distributed to the first responders. ''El Estero'' herself would remain in her sunken state for the better part of four months before the still-loaded ship was finally raised from the seafloor and towed out of the harbor for use as a naval gunnery target. Her untimely end and its legacy are still very much visible today in the modern-day Sandy Hook Bay, where in August 1943 the

US Navy The United States Navy (USN) is the naval warfare, maritime military branch, service branch of the United States Department of Defense. It is the world's most powerful navy with the largest Displacement (ship), displacement, at 4.5 millio ...

began construction of a new ammunition depot in New Jersey, now known as

Naval Weapons Station Earle Naval Weapons Station Earle, originally known as the Naval Ammunition Depot Earle, is a United States Navy base in Monmouth County, New Jersey, United States. Its distinguishing feature is a pier in Sandy Hook Bay where ammunition can be loaded ...

which features a 2.9-mile pier designed to move the hazardous activity of loading and unloading munitions away from densely populated areas. Over half a century later, both the ''Fire Fighter'' and ''John J. Harvey'', the latter then a

museum ship A museum ship, also called a memorial ship, is a ship that has been preserved and converted into a museum open to the public for educational or memorial purposes. Some are also used for training and recruitment purposes, mostly for the small numb ...

, helped fight fires at

Ground Zero A hypocenter or hypocentre (), also called ground zero or surface zero, is the point on the Earth's surface directly below a nuclear explosion, meteor air burst, or other mid-air explosion. In seismology, the hypocenter of an earthquake is its p ...

in the aftermath of the

September 11, 2001 The September 11 attacks, also known as 9/11, were four coordinated Islamist terrorist suicide attacks by al-Qaeda against the United States in 2001. Nineteen terrorists hijacked four commercial airliners, crashing the first two into ...

attacks.

The ship

The fire

Aftermath

References

See also